A psychologist has spent ages doing a study that proves that you can tell a gay from a non-gay, just by looking. Sort of. Well, some of the time. A bit.
Nicholas Rule's study, published in last month's Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, involved the researcher getting 15 undergrads, showing them pictures of men, and asking them they thought said men were gays.
The study showed that the students correctly identified gays 60% of the time. So, just a bit more than half the time.
So, there you have it! Proof!
You know if someone's gay because they look gay, apart from when they're not, and you can tell if someone isn't gay when they look straight, apart from when they're not.
Brilliant.
If you really want to make it scientifically
valid study, here's the way to do it.
Get 20-30 photos of very average, non-gender featured looking young adults, both male and female, remove their hair and I'll
bet nobody will guess gays, lesbians from
straight photos.
There are obviously certain characteristics
that homosexuals might try to ""show-off that they are homosexuals, but that is
a learned behavior and not something
homosexuals are born with.
Posted by: hankhawk | August 26, 2008 at 08:05 PM
It's all in the eyes and where they are looking.
Personally I know a guy is gay when we meet and i feel the need to check my fly.
Posted by: antillus | August 27, 2008 at 07:15 AM
so how do we find each other? We do. We did before the "gay village". 100% reliable? No. That is what the study seems to be saying and its results are about right from my experience.
I think your hack needs a lesson in commonsense.
Posted by: John | August 28, 2008 at 10:21 AM
"So, there you have it! Proof!"
That should really read :-
So, there you have it! Poof!
Posted by: mp3 | August 28, 2008 at 11:25 AM
hanthawk: Very reductionist view there. You're assuming that we're interested in purely physical differences, rather than the learned behaviours/ outfit choices. Of course, in an ideal world we get to investigate both questions, and a thousand others besides.
I'm all for rational scientific investigation where you eliminate all the competing variables and just focus on what you're interested in. Just... don't get so carried away you throw out what we *are* interested in.
I think Einstein once said 'Make everything as simple as possible. But no simpler." Smart guy.
Posted by: Dougal | August 29, 2008 at 09:18 PM
Fifteen... undergrads?
Fifteen?
Way to take a proper sample size.
Posted by: Finn | August 30, 2008 at 06:32 PM
Funny Im thinking about the new research mantra going around in academic circles - men who have sex with men or MSM - or in the show host media arena- DOWN-LOWS. I guess photo's (or face to face) didn't help academics, wives or girlfriends to identify a gay man when they saw one. So this research was undertaken for what purpose?
Posted by: L. Andrews | September 04, 2008 at 08:06 PM
Nice post.It's all in the eyes and where they are looking.Personally I know a guy is gay when we meet and i feel the need to check my fly...
Posted by: x-ray fluorescence | January 24, 2009 at 09:00 AM